Dr Telford said consistency had been the key ingredient for Nipperess.

“I don’t expect him to flog himself at training now,” he said.

“He’s got to be able to recover between each of his training sessions.

“It’s just a case of putting the icing on the cake now.”

So what does it take?

Training involves a gruelling mix of endurance sessions, speed training on the track and fartlek training.

“Fartlek is Swedish for ‘speed play’, so when training is at the National Arboretum, for example, we’ve got these enormous hills to climb and we do that as part of long or short repetitions,” Nipperess said.

“I do some heavy weights at the gym too, heavy for a skinny distance runner anyway.

“I’ve been trying to hone my hurdling technique with a series of plyometric jumping drills.”